Susan Dey, who was only 18 years old at the time, became one of the most popular TV stars of the 1970s.
“The Partridge Family” ran from 1970 to 1974 and featured the lives of a musical family living in the fictitious city of San Pueblo, California.
Dey, a model at the time, was hired as elder sister Laurie in the ABC TV smash about a singing family who travels to gigs in a restored psychedelic school bus.
From 1970 until 1974, Dey portrayed the compassionate and intellectual Laurie Partridge, a prominent character in The Partridge Family.
The show won the hearts and minds of millions of Americans, and even after losing its place as the top television show in the United States, it achieved renown over the pond, airing in the United Kingdom.
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Its success took its toll on the actors, with Dey alleged to have experienced an eating disorder and her weight dropped to 92 lbs, which a TV producer noticed and called her out on, beginning a new healthier eating regime that didn’t require starving herself.
According to his memoir C’mon, Get Happy: Fear and Loathing on the Partridge Family Bus, David Cassidy, who played Keith on the program, felt tremendous pressure as his popularity grew, with “mass hysteria” surrounding his every move.
During the show’s four-year run, Cassidy became a teen idol and drew the attention of millions of women worldwide, including his co-star Susan Dey, who had a huge crush on the singing sensation.
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They didn’t start dating until after the concert, but their relationship was brief, with Cassidy abruptly ending it and later divulging sensitive information about her in his memoir, including his belief that she was too innocent for him.
Despite the fact that the couple remained friends after their romance ended, Dey was upset by the sensitive things Cassidy divulged about him and vowed never to see him again, even refusing to attend a Partridge family reunion years later.
While starring in “The Partridge Family,” Dey wrote her own book titled “Susan Dey’s Secrets on Boys, Beauty, and Popularity.”
After the hit show ended, Dey had numerous acting offers and went on to feature in over 20 films, the most of which were created for television, as well as 15 television shows, earning her six Golden Globe and three Emmy nods.
But it was her work as Grace Van Owen in “LA Law” that earned her the Golden Globe for Best Actress. She portrayed the Los Angeles County deputy district attorney, who subsequently became a judge, for six years.
Susan Dey is said to have turned down the role of Sandy in Grease, an unusual coincidence given that Olivia Newton-John, who ended up playing Sandy in the hit musical, had been offered the role of Laurie in “The Partridge Family” and accepted but was persuaded not to take it by her manager, according to Worldation.com reports.
Dey was born Susan Hallock Dey in 1952 and spent her childhood in Westchester County, New York. Her mother was a nurse, while her father was an editor at the Standard-Star in New Rochelle, New York.
Dey has been out of the spotlight for the last decade and is said to be enjoying life in upstate New York, the city where she grew up, with her husband, Bernard, of more than 30 years.
Following her breakup with Dey, she expressed her desire to be in romantic relationships with older guys. She stated she preferred older men because they knew just how to obtain what they wanted.
Susan Dey has always been drawn to older guys, as she acknowledged to the press in 1988.
”I’m attracted to older men simply because they’ve learned how to get what they want,” she said.
Her first husband, Lenny Hirshan, was an agent and 25 years older than Dey. The pair was married from 1976 until 1981 and had one daughter, Sara, who was born in 1978.
Susan married her present spouse, TV producer Bernard Sofronski, in 1988. They married in a tiny, private ceremony attended by family and friends.
”Bernie has helped me understand that love involves give and take. I never understood love until I met him. I seem to have more energy and I’m allowing myself to become more and more me every day. It makes life so much easier when you’re with someone you can trust,” she told Woman’s Own Magazine in 1988.
Let’s hope the beloved 69-year-old actress is having fun away from the spotlight and reliving about her childhood.
Please share with any “The Partridge Family” fans you know.
